Did you watch Oprah this last week? I haven't watched
Oprah in years but decided to record her last week of shows. So yesterday, I watched Thursday's episode about her favorite guests. It was a good one. I cried pretty hard! One of her favorite guests was these children who told the untold side of kids who are in the middle of parents divorce. These kids were so brave and in a way I felt what they said I had experienced in my own life.
My parents divorced when I was 15. I came home from the first week of high school, and my dad was there with his bags packed telling us he was leaving. I have replayed that moment in my head so many different times. What if I would have begged him to stay? What if I would have told him he couldn't leave? I have thought all the "what if's." I remember talking with my little brother who was 11 and explaining that my dad was with another women. I remember the shocked expression and devastation on his face because he was convinced my dad was going to come back.
I hated going through this, I hated being put into the category of having divorced parents. I hated the sympathy looks I got from everyone around me. I remember people I didn't even know coming up to me at football games and saying, "I heard about your parents, I'm so sorry!" I hated them for bringing it up when I was trying to just be a kid for a small minute.
I think all kids who go through this always have a secret hope that one day your parents will get back together. Maybe it's the Parent Trap idea that if you can just remind them that being together isn't so bad. You think of all the things that you could do or would have done differently to make them or get them to stay together. And then there's so much guilt as a child of divorce. For me, if I talked to my dad or did anything with him there was a huge backlash from my mom. She wanted us to punish him for what he did to us. She couldn't understand that even though I hated what he did to our family he was still my dad. She would rub it in my face when he wouldn't see or talk to me for weeks or months at a time. The first 10 years were awful, there were so many fights, so many harsh words spoken. Family events that should have been joyous were usually taken over with anxiety of keeping my parents apart and who to sit by or talk to at blessings, baptisms, graduations and weddings. On the Oprah show, the psychotherapist guy kept saying it's like a death. But I don't agree with that. It's worse than death because you have the person still alive, still breathing and you knowing that he doesn't want to see you, doesn't want to call. When someone dies, you grieve the loss, and you carry their memory with you.
It's easy to look back and say my parents should have done things differently. My mom should have made my dad take us every other weekend. She should have made him be a parent. But she wanted to hold us hostage from him, and in the end I think it hurt her more. She never got a break, she was the only disciplinarian we had. I and my younger siblings would skip school all the time, and my dad would always excuse us without my mom ever knowing.
I just appreciated Oprah's show for showing the damage that is being done when people divorce. Sometimes divorce is the best option, but I hope this show helped people who were debating getting divorced see what does happen to the kids who are innocently thrown into an adult's world.
Last friday Logan was announced as Student of the Month for April.
Last friday was also Father's and Son's. The boys stayed up late and woke up early. By late afternoon Porter had had it with life and was sent to his room. 5 minutes later this is how I found him:)
The boys on their way to camp.
Porter had his field trip last friday as well, (busy day!) Brandon was able to take him and they had so much fun together.
Milking the cow!
Porter and his buddy Christian.
Olivia, aka Peg Bundy all ready to hang out with momma while the boys were gone.
From the Fun Run that the boys did they made their goal to get a crazy hair day. So since boys are a little harder to go crazy hair with we sprayed it, man I was glad I bought those color sprays from Halloween. They were very excited to look "crazy!"
